An apparatus for performing high speed scanning of an optical delay and its application for performing optical interferometry, ranging, and imaging, including cross sectional imaging using optical coherence tomography, is disclosed. The apparatus achieves optical delay scanning by using diffractive optical elements in conjunction with imaging optics. In one embodiment a diffraction grating disperses an optical beam into different spectral frequency or wavelength components which are collimated by a lens ...

An imaging system for performing optical coherence tomography includes an optical radiation source; a reference optical reflector; a first optical path leading to the reference optical reflector; and a second optical path coupled to an endoscopic unit. The endoscopic unit preferably includes an elongated housing defining a bore; a rotatable single mode optical fiber having a proximal end and a distal end positioned within and extending the length of the ...

An apparatus for performing high speed scanning of an optical delay and its application for performing optical interferometry, ranging, and imaging, including cross sectional imaging using optical coherence tomography, is disclosed. The apparatus achieves optical delay scanning by using diffractive optical elements in conjunction with imaging optics. In one embodiment a diffraction grating disperses an optical beam into different spectral frequency or wavelength components which are collimated by a lens ...

Diagnostic imaging technologies for the detection of cancer include CT, MRI, ultrasonography, and endoscopy. However, many early neoplastic changes remain beyond their detection limits. A modality capable of imaging at or near the cellular level could detect disease at earlier stages than currently possible and thus improve patient prognosis. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can achieve resolutions in the cellular and subcellular range (1-15 um) and could improve the diagnostic range ...

The ability to obtain optical biopsies, or micron scale, cross-sectional, optical images of tissue microstructure in situ, would aid the diagnosis and clinical management of many diseases. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an optical imaging technique that use low coherence interferometry to perform high resolution, cross-sectional imaging in biological systems. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the use of OCT for obtaining optical biopsies of in vivo tissue.

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a new technique for high-resolution, cross-sectional imaging of tissue in which the time-of-flight delay of light reflected from internal tissue structures is resolved with high precision using interferometer. Tomographic images are obtain which are analogous to those provided by ultrasound except that image contrast relies on differences in optical rather than acoustic properties of tissue. The use of light rather than sound enable higher resolution ...

Techniques for nondestructive evaluation (NDE), testing, and inspection of parts during manufacturing and materials processing, in situ, or during design, is a key technology. The authors use optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a high-resolution, high-sensitivity imaging technology that is based on the coherence properties of light.

A method and apparatus for performing various optical measurements is provided utilizing an optical coherence domain refrectometer (OCDR). A short coherence optical radiation source applies optical radiation through like optical paths to a sample and an optical reflector. The optical reflector is movable in accordance with a predetermined velocity profile to permit interferometric scanning of the sample, the resulting output having a Doppler shift frequency modulation. This output may be ...

A method and apparatus for performing optical imaging on a sample wherein longitudinal scanning or positioning in the sample is provided by either varying relative optical path lengths for an optical path leading to the sample and to a reference reflector, or by varying an optical characteristic of the output from an optical source applied to the apparatus. Transverse scanning in one or two dimensions is provided on the sample ...

Business News:

Technology:

Miscellaneous:

About
James G. Fujimoto

James Fujimoto is Elihu Thomson Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, visiting professor of ophthalmology at Tufts University School of Medicine, and adjunct professor at the Medical University of Vienna. His group and collaborators invented and developed OCT, and he co-founded Advanced Ophthalmic Devices and LightLab Imaging, which developed cardiovascular OCT. He has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles and co-edited 13 books. He is a director of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and general co-chair of the SPIE BIOS symposium, and previously was co-chair of two Conferences on Lasers and Electro Optics and the European Conference on Biomedical Optics, and director of the Optical Society (OSA). He has received the Zeiss Research Award, IEEE Photonics Award, and OSA Ives Medal, and he shared the 2002 Rank Prize in Optoelectronics and 2012 António Champalimaud Vision Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Quotes

The development of OCT in the early 1990s greatly benefited from components and methods used in fiber-optical communications...And still, 25 years later, advances in the optical communications industry continue to greatly benefit OCT.

Our study demonstrates world-record results in cubic meter volume imaging, with at least an order of magnitude larger depth range and volume compared to previous demonstrations of three-dimensional OCT...These results provide a proof-of-principle demonstration for using OCT in this new regime...Long-range OCT is a new range of operation that requires extremely high performance light sources, integrated optical receivers and signal processing.

"The development of OCT in the early 1990s greatly benefited from components and methods used in fiber optical communications,. And still, 25 years later, advances in the optical communications industry continue to greatly benefit OCT.

The newest swept-source OCT has the advantage that the light source frequency sweep range and repetition rate can be adjusted to tailor the resolution, imaging range, and axial scan repetition rate for the specific imaging application.

We are now approaching a point with OCT where ophthalmologists have a view of the retina that is similar to that of pathologists...In the future, functional imaging will make subtle changes in pathology more measurable, and these advances will enhance sensitivity when monitoring disease progression and response to therapy.

Hand-held instruments can enable screening a wider population outside the traditional points of care...The hand-held platform allows the diagnosis or screening to be performed in a much wider range of settings...Developing screening methods that are accessible to the larger population could significantly reduce unnecessary vision loss.

Partnership between academics and industry was critical for the development of OCT and is a powerful approach for translating new scientific discoveries into real world clinical practice...Clinical researchers on our team as well as other clinicians at leading international medical centers worked with the early OCT technology, exploring new clinical applications and blazing a trail that the broader clinical community could follow. This interdisciplinary approach was key to the success of this technology.

OCT has the advantage that it can image 1 or 2 millimeters below the surface with high resolution, noninvasively...Increased imaging speed is important; it allows broader coverage or improved resolution...the concept is not that the technology is trying to diagnose the cancer per se, since excisional biopsies do that well...Instead, it is coupling 3D OCT scanning across the sampling area with standard biopsies.